


use your words

by ehonauta (banzai)



Series: the saddest times and the worst times suited you well [2]
Category: Hawkeye (Comics)
Genre: Bobbi Morse is fucking smart, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Clint needs therapy, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Kate also needs therapy, Kid Fic, Pregnancy, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-12
Updated: 2014-07-12
Packaged: 2018-02-08 13:50:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1943559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/banzai/pseuds/ehonauta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snapshots from the worst year.</p>
            </blockquote>





	use your words

**Author's Note:**

> This fic doesn't require you to have read the previous fic in this series, but you do need to know the following: a. Kate didn't leave for LA, b. the events of Hawkeye 15 happened as-is, and c. prior to that issue, Kate and Barney were in a relationship (sort of). This fic is much happier than that one, although that't not exactly saying much. Thanks as always to my enabler and beta snows. All remaining mistakes and inconsistencies are mine.

**one**

He opens his eyes and Kate is the first thing he sees. He feels his stomach clench around emptiness as he realizes how desperately he wants for that to always be the case. She’s got his hand clutched tightly in both of hers and she’s slumped over the side of the bed. She looks exhausted but somehow softer than the last time he saw her, which was – wait, when was that? For that matter, where is he? The last he remembers is falling to the ground as some whackadoodle in mime makeup fucking stabbed and _shot him_. Jesus.

He thrashes a bit, instinctively, and she jerks upright, eyes wide.

“ _Clint_?”she gasps.

Then she’s launching herself off her chair and through a nearby doorway. He hears her lose her lunch dramatically and feels his stomach clench again in sympathy.

“Uh, Kate?”

“Shut up, asshole. Morning sickness is fucking bullshit. …oh crap, I wasn’t—“

But he can’t hear her anymore over the sound of him passing out again from the shock.

**two**

He hates funerals. He hates the ceremony of them that means nothing to him. He hates how many of them he’s been to. You know what dead is? Dead is just fucking _dead_. All dogs don’t go to heaven, little brother. They just go to the fucking incinerator.

Barney’s dead and he’s still bumming Clint out.

The rest of this crap isn’t helping. They’re standing in the rain at Arlington like a fucking season opener from some cop show while some uniformed chaplain drones on about something Clint can’t quite make out. He wishes like hell Barney hadn’t made his own fucking funeral arrangements, but also he’s disgustingly grateful because that means Clint didn’t have to do it himself.

Kate’s standing next to him in the ugliest goddamn black dress he’s ever seen (“Shut up, asshole, I know it’s awful. Maternity clothing is a vicious and sadistic conspiracy.”) Cap’s there, too, looking grave and sympathetic all at once. Clint wants to scream. He wants to drink and break shit and tell inappropriate jokes and scream some more and fucking _run away_.

If Clint weren’t already a superhero, this would probably be his dramatic origin story. Which is bullshit.

Barney dying means a lot fucking more to Barney than it does to Clint.

Maybe Barney’s kid’ll be a supervillain. That would just about figure.

Or maybe it’ll be Batman. It’s hard to tell when it’s still the size of an avocado or whatever Kate’s stupid website says.

“Pay attention,” Kate hisses, loudly enough for him to actually hear it, which means Cap hears it too, and isn’t that just great. Maybe if he doesn’t make eye contact he can avoid the disappointed look.

Everything sucks.

**three**

“Are we gonna talk about this?”

She snorts. “What, you want to talk about your feelings? That’s a new one.”

He scowls. “No, stupid, I want to talk about—“ he gestures at her already shockingly rounded belly. “—that.”

“No you don’t.”

“Yes I do.”

“No, you _don’t._ It is all over your face how much you don’t want to talk about it. And I don’t want to either.”

“Kate, we have to.”

“Tough. I’m tired of doing the right thing. This” she gestures down at herself “gets me off the hook for having to do the right thing, forever. I’ve done it. I’m set for life. Now I get to sit back and let the world do me a favor for once.”

“Pssh. Like that’s gonna happen. Six months in, this kid will be in daycare while you’re off trying to save the world.”

As soon as – shit, _before_ the words are out of his mouth, he regrets them.

“Get the fuck out.” Her eyes are hard and angry as she points him to the door.

“What?! No!”

“Get _out_ , Clint.”

“Hey, this is my apartment!”

“Not right now. Now this is my and Lucky’s apartment. I don’t want to see your shitty face for… I don’t know how long. Just fucking _go_.”

And being Clint, he does.

(She calls him back six and a half hours later. He’s sitting outside the Nostrand Avenue station because he feels like he should go somewhere but doesn’t have anywhere to go. Tasha’s out of the country again, and Bobbi is, well, Bobbi, and he doesn’t trust anyone else with himself right now. He’s too scared he’ll start drinking or yelling or crying and never stop. So he just… sits. When she calls, she demands coconut popsicles and he spends another two hours looking for a bodega that’s actually open at 5 a.m. and also stocks the damn things.

He’s frustrated as hell when he gets home. He’d be angry, but she hugs him when he walks in the door, just wraps her weird, ungainly new body around him and he holds on for dear life.)

**four**

Everything is terrible.

Kate is nerve-wrackingly pregnant and her boobs are enormous and her libido is apparently through the roof and he knows this because she _won’t stop talking about it_.

Clint didn’t even know that he didn’t want to know that you can get high-end sex toys delivered in the city.

She’s eyeing him in this speculative way that makes him feel electrified and nauseated all at once, and apparently the feeling is mutual, because every time she accidentally catches his eye when she’s ogling his arms or whatever, she looks away quickly with a wince.

There is literally no tactful way to say “I absolutely cannot fuck you while your giant bump full of my brother’s baby is in the way.”

(He’d say it better. But … well, ok, maybe he wouldn’t, because “make love” doesn’t actually make the underlying concept any better. Maybe… uh, not referring to it as a bump? No, that doesn’t work either. So he just keeps his mouth shut.)

**five**

Kate is tired all the time. She’s young, and a superhero, and ridiculously in shape, and she does her prenatal yoga religiously and swims endless laps in the pool at Le Parker Meridien once a week (partially so she can bring home burgers when she’s done, shut up), but the fact is that emotional exhaustion and incubating a giant Barton baby means she’s just fucking _tired_.

She spends what feels like 90% of her time either asleep or peeing.

Clint knows this, because she’s decided that the most restful place for her is on the couch, with her head in his lap and Lucky on her feet. In this position, she talks. Half-asleep, with her eyes closed and her voice soft, she tells him all the things that happened while he was in the hospital. How she moved into the apartment and took care of his people and learned how to seal windows and patch brickwork so they’d all be taken care of. How good they were to her, because they thought they understood what was going on in her body and her head and her heart, even if they kinda got it wrong. Sometimes they fall asleep like that, curled up on the couch that’s now his bed, but usually she just gives him a good hard hug and goes upstairs to sleep fitfully.

The night she tells him that maybe she did love Barney but it was never going to be the kind of love that took its place in her goddamn soul, she curls an arm around his calf and holds on for dear life.

He pets her hair and makes soft, meaningless noises to help her fall asleep.

They both pretend they’re not crying.

**six**

There is a baby. There is a baby and Kate is really not ok and Clint is scared scared _scared_.

There was some stuff about bleeding and how you’re not supposed to be in active labor for like five days or whatever and a bunch of words he was purposefully not listening to because Kate had gone from uncomfortable to angry to pale and quiet and Clint didn’t have time to pay attention to anybody else.

So they took her to surgery and Clint lost some time and now there is a goddamn _baby._ And they just… let him hold it…. Her? Him? He’s not checking. They didn’t bother to check whether he was the right Mr. Barton, he’s not gonna check this baby’s business.

He’s just gonna wait. He’s gonna sit here and Kate’s gonna sleep and heal and wake up and tell him what to do with this baby and it’s gonna be fine.

It’s gonna be _fine._

He’s maybe holding the baby a little too tight, because it squawks, kinda, and wriggles its head around in the crook of his arm. The little cap it’s wearing comes loose and Clint’s throat closes up because this baby has a full goddamn head of dark red hair.

“Aww, _hair_ ,” he croaks as he tugs the little cap back on its head as gently as he can. His hands feel too big and too cold and he just wants—

The baby opens its eyes and gives him the most unimpressed look he’s ever gotten from something that looks like a cross between a capuchin monkey and Mickey Rourke.

He chuckles a little at the image, the band around his heart loosening slightly, and he looks up to share the joke with Kate but she’s… still not with him.

She’s so fucking small like this. Small and still and he’s not prepared for this. He’s never gonna be.

So he scoots his chair a little closer to her bed so he can hold the baby with one arm and grab her hand with the other. He can wait. He and this baby are gonna wait for her for as long as they have to.

**seven**

Newborns are intimidating. They are demanding and loud and gross and Clint hasn’t had to deal with anything this breakable in a very long time.

Like, if you smush their heads the wrong way, you can apparently fuck up their brains? Clint’s positive he’s not the guy for this job.

This particular newborn, however – who is _not_ named after any of the Avengers OR any Barton or Bishop, which is pretty great – is kind of growing on him. (Ok, technically the kid doesn’t have any name at all yet – just Baby Boy Barton – but for real, do you know how many Avengers there are? They’re working on it.)

Kate’s kind of a zombie these days, but to be fair, so is Clint. They’re getting maybe four uninterrupted hours of sleep a night, which he’s told is actually really great. He’s about halfway sure those enthusiastic nurses and pediatricians are just fucking with him, but four hours of sleep is what he’s getting so it’s not like he’s going to mope around wishing for more.

He does wish he had a little bit more energy to worry – he feels like there’s a storm coming, like something really fucking bad is over the horizon – but right now he’s as happy as he’s going to be in this claustrophobic little apartment with his best friend and this kid in his arms.

**seven and a half**

“Mark”

“Bleh, too Biblical. Thomas”

“Oh my god, I can’t let anyone think I named your brother’s kid after a guy I used to date, how tacky is that?”

“… You know what, ok, nevermind. Charles.”

“Clint, this kid is not a junior. He’s gonna have enough fucking problems.”

“Hey, watch the language, Hawkeye. You’re somebody’s mom.”

“Yeah, I’m the mom of someone who is gonna know the word ‘fuck.’ Don’t be so prissy. Sebastian, maybe?”

“Se ** _bas_** tian?! Are you kidding? Sebastian sounds like some emo goth kid with too much eyeliner. Do you _want_ him to get beat up on the playground?”

“Yes, obviously that’s what I want. Because as a small Barton boy he’s not going to get into fights anyway OH WAIT.”

“…shut up. Nicholas.”

“You wanna name our – uh – this kid after _Nick Fury_?”

“Gah, no, ok. I kinda forgot he had a first name. Uh. Hm.”

“Christopher”

“No. I’ve known too many Chrises.  This kid deserves better than something that generic.”

“Ummm, Robert?”

“There is no excuse for saddling a kid with even the smallest chance that someone is going to call him Bob.”

“That is both incredibly specific and unhelpful, thanks.”

“Jeremy maybe?”

At this, the kid makes what Clint would _swear_ is a thumbs-up, and grunts. They both stare down at him in shock where he’s happily going back to his dinner.

“Uh… ok. Jeremy it is. But I think it’s only fair to give him your brother’s crappy middle name too.”

“Aw, c’mon, Kate. Like the red hair isn’t enough punishment?”

She smacks him. “Shut up, dumbass.”

“Ok, but I’m calling him JB.”

**eight**

Things are settled now, enough, that Clint’s moved back to Avengers on-call.

He’s a little antsy as they move out, and he’s gotta remember to go to the store before he goes home, but it feels good to be out in the field again. Giant crabs again, which you’d think wouldn’t be a thing, but, well, the Gowanus Canal _is_ an actual toxic waste site, so maybe it’s to be expected. They’ve even got glowing eyes and poison pincers this time, and they’re weirdly pretty to look at… at least from the top of this building.

Clint figured out pretty early into the fight that the crabs have a couple of weak spots – the eyes, obviously, and just behind the head. He’s passed that on over the comms, and the team is dispatching them quickly. There’s still a ton of them, because this seems to be some kind of supernatural crab swarm (is that a thing?) but they’re making progress.

Clint’s watching for dangerous stragglers out of the corner of his eye while he shoots down another. He sees a little band of them start scooting down an alley to a little pocket of civilians the next block over, so he shoots a quick explosive arrow in front of the leader and fires off a grappling arrow so he can get into a better position to take them out. He jumps off the building, anticipating the tension in his shoulders and then all of a sudden he’s being yanked and he’s _falling—_

He wakes up in medical. Oh joy.

Natasha and Cap are there and—“Ok, I’m sure that looked bad—“

“You jumped off a building into an explosion of your own making.” Natasha raises an eyebrow. “Yeah, it looked bad.”

“It’s not like you to be so careless, Clint.”

Great. Full-on disappointed Captain America. Just what this week needed.

“Is there something you want to tell us? I thought things were getting better.” Natasha looks… pinched, kinda. Like she’s upset, but he’s not sure if it’s at him or for him or what.

“Uhhh… things are fine?”

“So you’re saying you didn’t allow yourself to make a foolish error to maybe have your problems taken away from you for a while?”

Clint sits up in bed (ow) and points his finger at her. “My problems are my problems and honestly things are going fine. They’re _fine,_ Natasha.”

“Because it looked a bit… suicidal,” Cap puts in.

“Seriously? Because in a haze of new parent sleep deprivation I misjudged the angle on my grappling arrow while saving a bunch of civilians? How exactly is that my fault?”

Cap is making this gently pitying face that makes Clint want to punch something. “You’re not a parent, Clint.”

“Wow. _Wow_. Like you have any idea what I am or am not right now? I bathe that kid, I feed him, I put him to sleep, I helped name him, and I’m sure as fuck related to him, so you really want to tell me I’m not?” Clint is working his way up to seethingly angry and the monitors and crap around his bed are starting to make noise.

Somehow this just pisses Cap off. “You are never going to be the man you could be if you can’t stop being so selfish about this—“

“Okay, hold the fuck up. I am actually being a _grownup_ these days. Is my home life a little weird? Sure, but so’s the home life of everybody in this room – for that matter, pretty much everyone I _know_ – so maybe back off a little. I am being an adult, I am taking care of my family – and you sure as hell don’t get to define that for me. You know what’s in my wallet right now? Fucking _coupons_ because babies are tiny, demanding little Tony Starks without the expense account and we need more goddamn baby wipes.”

Natasha tries to interject but Clint just glares at her, so she shrugs.

Cap doesn’t get the message. “Ok, so it wasn’t intentional – I apologize. I was over the line. But you ought to be more careful, for her sake—“

“What the _fuck,_ Steve. What exactly is going through your head? As a member of your team I really fucking hope you want me to be careful for _my_ sake, and for yours, and Tasha’s, and everyone else in the field with us. And also, Kate is one of the most competent, resilient people I have ever known and I know for a fact she’ll be fine without me—“

Steve’s eyebrows rise and he opens his mouth to say something – probably “ah HA,” with the way this conversation has gone so far, but Clint just scowls at him and keeps going.

“— _if_ something happens. Gotta say, _Cap,_ there were a whole lotta times I wished to God or whoever else that something _would_ happen, and I threw myself into the shit and nobody said a fucking word, and now that I’ve got a roommate and a baby, it’s somehow your business? Get the fuck out of my room. I need to go buy baby wipes.”

He starts tearing off the sensors and the little thing on his finger he can never remember what it’s called but has something to do with his blood, and the techs are coming in and—

“Tasha, did I already get cleared to leave?”

“Yeah, you’re fine. Just have Kate do the usual concussion drills.” She pauses. “You’re really ok?”

He huffs out half a laugh. “I’m really ok. Come visit. You’ll see.”

She hmms. “I might. Take a cab home, you could use an easy commute.”

He takes the cab, and pays extra to have the guy wait while he runs in to Duane Reade to buy a jumbo pack of wipes. His coupons turn out to be expired, but he managed to get into the line with the super lenient cashier, who just takes a look at him and smiles indulgently. So that’s not so bad.

When he finally gets home, he feels like he fell off a building – go figure – and he just kinda collapses on the couch.

Kate comes down from the bedroom with a sleepy but stubbornly refusing to sleep baby and perches on the couch next to him. “You look like shit.”

“Yeah, I sorta accidentally fell off a building, and I got a concussion, and then Captain America yelled at me and Tasha kinda helped. My friends suck..”

She snorts at him and plops the baby in his arms. “Yeah, that’s because everyone you know is an asshole. Yes, even your darling Captain America.” She looks down and smiles. “Maybe not this guy.” She leans down to nuzzle a kiss onto the baby’s cheek, then leans up and absently does the same to him.

She prods him up the stairs, puts a finally-asleep JB in his crib, and tucks Clint into bed.

"Now," she announces, "I’m going to sleep for the next three hours. If you wake me up before the three hours is up, I will punch you in the dick. Okay? Great!”

And sails back downstairs to conk out on the couch.

He looks over at the kid who is totally his kid now – weird parentage be damned. “Baby, it has been a very confusing day,” he murmurs, already half-asleep himself.

He sees, through the slats of the crib, JB open his eyes for a brief moment and glare.

**nine**

Clint is super tired of come-to-Jesus talks.

After Natasha and Steve came Tony – and wasn’t _that_ a fucking laugh riot, like Tony Stark has anything to say about being a non-self-destructive adult (although Pepper was puttering around in the background of the video call, and she seems like she would verbally knock him on his ass if he wasn’t at least doing a halfway decent job, so whatever) – and after Tony came a non-intervention intervention from Bruce, who just said he didn’t want to hear or talk about it but thanks to Tony he had a couple of great counseling hotline recs like that’s something Clint needs.

Nothing to really ruin your Tuesday like a 9 a.m. text from your ex-wife that just says “Since when is your partner your baby mama, and has she figured out you’re in love with her yet?”

He slumps resentfully into the corner of the couch and starts six response texts ranging from angry to sort of self-deprecatingly funny to just “no,” but apparently he takes too long typing and erasing and re-typing and by the time he’s halfway through “none of your business” (like that’s gonna work), she’s sent another one:

Bobbi: [Thought maybe funny-mean would work best. Guess I thought wrong.]

Bobbi: [Sorry about that. Are you ok?]

Bobbi: [I mean, you’re you, so probably not, but you and Kate and the baby are all ok?]

He sends her a photo he took last week of Kate asleep on the couch with JB sacked out on her chest. Somehow with his shitty phone he managed to get this almost painting-looking photo with this golden light and it just kinda hurts how much he loves looking at it. He hasn’t shown it to anybody else, but Bobbi deserves the truth, and this is the truth he’s got.

Bobbi: [God, Clint, he’s beautiful.]

Bobbi: [She’s ok. ;) ]

He laughs.

Bobbi: [You really ought to nut up and tell her, you know.]

Clint: [I don’t really see the point. We’ve got a good thing going.]

Bobbi: [You don’t think she deserves to know you love her?]

Bobbi: [You don’t think your kid deserves for his parents to be together?]

Clint: [Barney’s kid, not mine.]

Bobbi: [Bullshit. And bullshit, and bullshit. He’s yours in all the ways that matter. And you’re his.]

Bobbi: [And you’d die for the both of them, I know. More importantly, from what I hear, you’re willing to *live* for them. Come on, Clint.]

He scrubs a hand over his eyes and resists the urge to stamp his feet like a teenager.

Bobbi: [I can hear you whining from here.]

Clint: [I’m fucking scared, Birdie.]

Bobbi: [Well there you go. You’re never scared of the dumb stuff.]

Bobbi: [I mean, do what you want. The state of New York says you don’t have to listen to me anymore. But think about it at least.]

The locks rattle, then, and Kate comes in looking windswept and beautiful with JB half-heartedly wriggling in his little harness against her chest and Lucky’s leash in one hand. She takes a quick look at his emo teenager posture, wedged into the corner between the cushions and the arm of the couch, and quirks an eyebrow.

“Somebody dissing Nirvana on your MySpace wall?”

She closes the door, unhooks Lucky’s leash, and toes off her shoes, then begins the delicate process of unhooking one squirmy baby from the approximately ten thousand straps she’s got him belted to her body with. She coos a constant reassuring stream of nonsense at JB, who just kind of flails at her appreciatively. Lucky darts into the apartment and claims the other end of the couch.

“What? That doesn’t even—what?”

“Right, too modern for you. Uhhh, see some graffiti talking smack about Motley Crue or something? You’re all scowly.”

“It’s nothing.” Which is such a blatant, dumb, immature lie, that of _course_ it causes his phone to vibrate again. He opens the text, because he’s an idiot.

Bobbi: [You’re a grownup, and you know you are. Act like it. And use your words.]

He scowls harder.

Kate’s second eyebrow joins the first in its migration up her forehead.

He huffs, and _just_ manages to keep himself from crossing his arms petulantly. “Bobbi.”

Kate stills for a second, then just says, “Ah.” and goes back to the de-harness-ing of JB. She goes back to the sweet nonsense babble, a little more quietly, and for a second he wants all that affection aimed at him but ugh, that’s so shitty. He _is_ gonna be an adult. He’s gonna be an adult by not taking Kate’s attention away from JB, who already has a crappier life than he knows yet.

“Nah, it’s fine. Apparently I’m just really easy to nag.” He offers her a sideways grin and levers himself off the couch to go steal the baby back.

“Hey buddy. Who’s my best guy?”

JB flails and punches him on the cheek, but Clint can tell it’s a good flail. A happy flail.

This is enough.

No need to be selfish.

**ten**

So now Kate’s family is being kind of annoying. Which, the way she tells it, is par for the course, but Clint’s kind of baffled by it because he doesn’t really get annoying families. Murderous and abusive, or loyal and weirdly entertaining, sure, but not annoying.

Her dad refuses to come to Brooklyn to see JB – well, for any reason, really, because it requires _leaving Manhattan_ (some people, Clint thinks, need to get out more). He’s also not thrilled with her living situation, her roommate-slash-partner-slash-dude-of-ambiguous-relationship, and, frankly, the fact that she had a baby at all.

She comes storming into the apartment (which is actually pretty impressive since she’s got an old lady cart in front of her full of groceries and a jumbo box of diapers) grumbling something about “lawyers” and “unbelievably pushy” and “next of kin” and Clint’s oh shit meter goes off.

“Uh… Katie? What’s up?”

She blows a stray lock of hair out of her face and starts to roll the cart into the kitchen. “I—nothing. Nothing, it’s fine, I’m taking care of it.”

He may be dumb sometimes, but he’s not _that_ clueless.

“Uh, yeah, try again. I heard you say the magic word.”

She shoots a quizzical glance at him.

“ _Lawyers_ , Hawkeye. What’s going on? Lawyers are never nothing.”

She scowls. “My dad is trying to get me to move home. Says it’s better for the baby.”

Clint furrows his brow. “So… are you?”

“What? Jesus, no.” She turns her back on him and starts cramming things into the fridge.

He waits for her to continue, then asks, “Uh, why not?”

She starts so hard she whacks her head on the inside of the fridge and lets out a yelp. When she whirls on him, she’s _way_ angrier than he’s expecting.

“Because I live _here_ , asshole. Because we live together and we are a fucking family and I don’t need to move ‘home’ because I am home.”

“I—ok?”

She glares at him for a full minute and then actually bursts into tears.

Clint would be lying if he said he doesn’t panic a little. He makes an educated guess about hormones (hey, that third trimester was rough) and shuffles forward to hug her. She smacks him away and closes the fridge door, leaning her head against the freezer. She looks up at the ceiling and dashes away the tears with the heel of her hand.

“Everybody thinks they can tell me what to do here, Clint, except you, and you’re the only person I want to listen to.”

“Katie, I’m really lost. You want me to tell you what to do? Because I’m pretty sure that’s a terrible idea.”

She laughs and makes a godawful loud mucus-sucking snort. “No, dumbass, I want you to, I dunno, tell me what you _want_ me to do. And what you want to do. And what you want for this kid.”

He shrugs. “I want whatever makes you happy and keeps JB safe and healthy. Everything else is just, I dunno, details.”

“You seriously don’t have an opinion,” she replies flatly.

“I uh—“ he reaches up to rub the back of his neck awkwardly. “I mean, of course I want you to stay but—as far as most of the world knows, this isn’t really a family. That’s my nephew, not my son. You’re my partner, not my…whatever. Hell, I’m not even legally living in this building so… I don’t really think I’m in any place to ask. I literally don’t have the right to.”

She stares at him for a second, open-mouthed. “I swear to god, Clint, sometimes you are the dumbest sonofabitch.”

“Ok? I mean, probably, yeah. But I—“

JB chooses this moment to let out the world’s most piteously angry wail and Clint automatically just drops the conversation and goes to tend to His Majesty. When he comes back, holding a much cleaner baby (seriously, how do you crap so much that you get poop up to the _neck_ of your pyjamas), Kate is on the phone. She’s talking about affidavits or something and lawyerese gives him hives, so he just kinda zones out and goes to curl up on the couch and watch Dog Cops reruns. He’s trying to narrate the story of the second episode in a row to JB when she emerges from the kitchen.

“Tomorrow a courier is going to bring over a bunch of paperwork from Jennifer Walters’ office for you to sign. You can read it if want, but I’d really rather you didn’t, because it will take you all day and then you’ll be grumpy and have a headache and I’m not interested in dealing with that. It’s power of attorney for me and JB, and power of attorney for you given to me, and a bunch of paperwork I don’t really understand that is going to fix the ownership issue on this building.”

He and JB blink at her. “Ok.”

She throws her hands up in frustration. “Seriously? _Seriously_? Just ok? You’re not this much of a fucking doormat, Clint, what the hell?”

“I just—you trust me to do some stuff. I trust you to do this stuff. I know Jen, kinda, and she’s good people. If you and she are arranging to fix this stuff, then why would I argue? Just—“ he pauses, licks his lips. “You really wanna stay?”

Kate deflates a little and comes around to join them on the couch. She plops down and puts her head on his shoulder and sighs. “Yeah, Hawkeye. I really wanna stay.”

**ten and a half**

Hours after the lawyer conversation, Clint is wide awake. Even NYC is quiet this far before dawn, especially in the residential neighborhoods. He finds himself wishing for a traffic accident outside, or his Avengers comms to buzz, or anything to take him out of his own head.

He’s pacing the far side of the bedroom from the bed, JB completely conked out against his chest after his last feeding. He’s trying just to focus on the rhythm of those tiny breaths against his heart.

“I should have said something, baby,” he whispers against the top of JB’s head. “I just—I just should have said something.”

He hears a rustle from the bed, and looks up to see Kate blinking at him blearily.

“Put the baby down and go to bed, dumbass,” she murmurs at him, eyes closing again.

“Just making sure he’s really out, Katie-Kate. I’ll go down in a minute.”

“Nn-hh. Go.” And she’s out again.

He meanders his way to the crib and carefully sets JB down, making sure he’s swaddled securely and still asleep. He lets himself linger for a second, hand just resting on that tiny chest, before he makes himself go back downstairs to the couch.

He settles in, but then just stares at the ceiling.

It’s so close to what he wants. They’re here, aren’t they? They’re letting him stay. Kate’s in his bed and his best little man is tucked into his crib and the building is really gonna be his and everything is just ok.

Bobbi had a point but with this Clint knows better than to push his luck. He’ll find the moment again. He _will_.

He never does get back to sleep.

**eleven**

Simone is an actual godsend. There is nothing like having an experienced mom-person in the building who actually likes him enough to give advice – asked-for or not – that helps them not fuck up this parenting thing.

So when she offered them free babysitting for a night off it seemed like a really great idea. Kate seemed a little unsure, but the baby books say separation anxiety at this point is totally normal. (He relies on the books a lot to make sure he’s not fucking this up. Much.)

They’re on their way into Manhattan because Clint is craving the meatloaf at that place by Union Square, and it seems like a great opportunity to actually take the subway, which is not something he’s looking forward to doing with an infant in tow. (Mostly they just take a car service these days. What? They have money, it’s a thing.)

Kate is being weirdly twitchy. He bumps her shoulder affectionately with his and she stills, looking at him sharply. He gives her a big, open grin, because regardless of all the crap, he _is_ glad to be out of the house, and out of the neighborhood for once, and he’s glad she’s here with him.

Whatever she sees in his face seems to relax her a bit, but she’s still tenser than normal. He’s guessing it’s probably, like, mom-stuff, but he’s not going to ask. I mean, yeah, he might have learned from the shit with Bobbi that you have to be willing to talk about your feelings or whatever, but that doesn’t mean he has to go asking for trouble. Kate’s a big girl. She’ll let him know when there’s important stuff.

So they settle in, and Clint gets a giant Coke and Kate gets a milkshake and she grins at the waitress when it shows up and for a minute everything’s perfect.

Then he takes a big sip of his Coke right before Kate goes “So is this a date or what, Hakweye?” and he inhales and there’s Coke in all kinds of places it doesn’t belong, including what feels like his right eye, and on his shirt, and a little bit on Kate’s cheek. She just wipes it off and stares at him challengingly.

“Well?”

“Jesus, Katie, I don’t –no! Unless – no! It’s just, we’re just getting out of the house.”

“You mean the house where we both live,” she shoots back, deadpan, “You know, together. With our baby. Try again. Unless what?”

“Nothing. Unless nothing. This is good. How’s your milkshake?”

She slams her hand on the table, scowling. “I swear to _God_ , Clint. Try. Again.”

“This is not a fucking date, Katie. If it were a date, I would have the sense to ask you first. I might be dumb, but I’m not a fucking creep. I’m never going to try to trick you into something. I just wanted to get us out of the house because you seemed kind of restless and, I dunno, sad.”

She scoffs. “Maybe I’m sad because my best friend keeps _lying_ to me, asshole.”

“What? I’m not lying to you!”

“Yeah? So you’re not avoiding telling me what’s going on with you and the constant sads and the looking at JB and me like we’re tearing your fucking heart out a little bit every day, or what’s going on when you disappear up the fire escape for hours at a time, and why you’re avoiding most of your other friends?”

“It’s not like that, Kate. It’s not lying. It’s, like, uh, sparing your feelings.”

She glares so hard at him he’s almost afraid his eyebrows are going to melt off.

The waitress, thank god, shows up to give them their food, and only falters a little when Kate accidentally shoots her laser-glare at her too. Clint tries to grin an apology at her and Kate kicks him hard in the shin. He glares back and hisses, “Stop it!”

The waitress gives them an unimpressed look and retreats to the kitchen.

He’s really fucking hoping Kate’s going to let him eat but—

“Oh look, my food needs to cool off for a minute, guess we have to _keep talking_.”

He actually groans. “Katie—“

“Don’t ‘Katie’ me, Clinton. You just dropped a bunch of bullshit on me, and I think you need to try. again.”

“I _am_ trying, Kate. I am trying not to be a creep and a selfish asshole. I am trying to be a good friend and not push for shit that you might not even want, and you sure as hell don’t deserve.”

“Hey, how about, I dunno, _asking me_ what I want, instead of doing stupid human tricks up on your high horse there. Because I’m really fucking tired of you treating me like I’m either breakable or a goddess or going to ditch you the moment something _you_ think is better comes along.”

“Well, I dunno, maybe it’s because it’s been _less than a year_ since the father of your child died and I thought maybe you needed some space.”

She snarls. “That is a fucking low blow, and you know it. That situation is not some kind of tragic fairytale romance that you’re horning in on. Why is it _my_ fucking responsibility to tell you what you can and cannot do, and when, or what is or is not appropriate? Why not just _talk to me_?”

He grips the edge of the formica table and leans over his dinner so he’s as close to in her face as he can get.  With a glare, he hisses, “Because I cannot fucking _lose you_ , ok?”

He closes his eyes for a full second, and when he opens them again, she’s slumped back against her chair, staring at him with a look so full of regret and pity it makes him feel terrified and angry and pathetic all at once.

“I don’t know what the hell I did to make you think you _could_ lose me. I know you’ve had a lot of shit in your life, and I know you miss Barney more than you’re letting on, but this is bullshit, Clint. This is bullshit and I’m tired of it. I’m not leaving, because we’re still a family, but I’m done pretending. I am _in love with you_ , you asshole, which you would have known months ago if you’d bothered to talk to me instead of doing your suffer-in-silence martyr act. If you don’t want that, or you—or it’s just some kind of weird transference thing about Barney or about JB or whatever, then that’s—“ Her voice catches a little. “—that’s fine, and we’ll figure out a way to work that. But this status quo is officially fucking over.”

She stands up, and he panics, shooting out a hand to wrap around her wrist. He looks up at her pleadingly, not trusting his voice, and she just frowns.

“I said I’m not leaving, Hawkeye. I just need some air.”

He watches her walk out the door, and he appreciates that she stays in front of the plate glass window of the restaurant, where she knows he can see her. She puts a hand over her eyes for a long moment, and he’s worried for a second that she’s crying, but she scrubs her face and when he can see her whole face again she just looks tired and resigned.

Nice to know he’s still got his super power of fucking things up when he’s trying to do the right thing. It’s so great.

She comes back in and sits across from him again a couple of minutes later. She pokes glumly at her fries for a minute, and he tries to think of any way to make it better.

“I’m sorry,” he offers, quietly. “I was trying to do the right thing. I didn’t want this to be about the baby, or about convenience, or whatever, and I think a little part of me was afraid you would only want it because of that stuff, or because I was substituting for Barney or something.”

She stops messing with her food and just buries her face in her hands and for a second he thinks, _it figures. Even trying to do the right thing to fix the not-right thing is still not the right thing._

But then she looks at him and her eyes are full of tears and she looks _guilty_ for some reason and –

“Barney was a substitute for _you_ , idiot.”

His heart seizes and it feels kinda like the last time he’d been shot, and then he’s overwhelmed with this agonizing mixture of anger and guilt and _grief_ because his brother had been kind of shitty to him, sure, but nobody deserved _this_.

He tries to get the words out, to just say that, but all that comes out is, “Wow, Kate. Wow.” His voice is rough and he’s sure he looks anything but sympathetic, but, well.

She looks like he’s slapped her and he puts a hand out to reassure her. “I—I’m not leaving either. But this is really fucked up, right? Like _really_. I think—I think maybe we need to go home, and maybe phone a friend or something.”

She nods, slowly. He scoots out from the table and goes to find the waitress so he can pay their bill and get boxes for the food they’re obviously not eating.

They take a cab home. They ride in silence, but as they drive over the bridge he rests his hand on the bench seat between them, palm up, open, and she slips her hand into his.

They don’t let go until they’re unlocking the door to the apartment.

Simone is there, sitting on the floor next to the blanket where JB is having some late tummy time, and she looks at their faces with a kind of gentle understanding overlaid with satisfaction.

“Hey, there you are,” she says with a smile.  “Home a little earlier than I expected, but I’m sure it’s hard to leave this little guy for too long. He’s pretty great.”

Kate crosses the room in about two strides and folds herself onto the floor in one movement, reaching out to let JB wrap one of his little hands around her finger. Simone smiles and shifts herself to her feet. She gives Clint a hug on her way out the door, and squeezes his bicep as she pulls back. “Hang in there, honey. You’re getting there.”

Clint goes to lie down on the floor across from Kate, and JB manages to turn his head (success!) and look him right in the eye. There’s no smiles yet, in this room, but he feels like they’re getting a little closer.

**twelve**

It’s been a year since Clint woke up from his coma. Sixteen months since Barney died. Six months since JB came into their lives. He has a therapist, now, that makes him say shit like that out loud, so he stops hiding from it. (Bruce’s help lines actually did help, and Bobbi yelled at him, which also helped. Kate apparently got gentle a gentle talking-to from Teddy, which actually sounds worse, as far as Clint is concerned. She’s got a therapist too, though, so that’s her business.)

Life is… good. But normal. It’s not beautiful and golden or whatever shit he’s supposed to want. He and Kate squabble over pizza toppings and who has next diaper changing duty. Sometimes they argue about bigger stuff, but at least they're getting it out in the open. Lucky spends a full week sulking because Clint was tired and bought the low-price dog food that smells like it tastes like sawdust. This, at least, leads to an entire apology afternoon in Prospect Park playing Frisbee with Lucky while he and Kate take turns hanging out with JB on a giant picnic blanket Kate’s sister sent them from some ridiculously overpriced yuppie outdoors store.

Lucky having totally demonstrated that he is better at Frisbee than Clint is, they trot over to the blanket and collapse onto it. Kate tosses him a thermos-y thing full of cold lemonade and he takes a giant swig before lying on his back, staring up at the trees.

JB is on his stomach, very seriously examining his octopus-shaped soft rattle. Lucky is comfortably panting on the grass, tongue lolling out of his mouth.

Kate’s got herself half-propped-up with her hands behind her, her legs stretched out in front of her as she shifts her attention back and forth between JB and the older kids out playing in the meadow. Clint rolls onto his side to just watch her for a minute, loving how happy and relaxed she looks.

“Hey Katie.”

“Yeah?” she murmurs, not really paying attention to him.

“Can I kiss you?”

She grins, still not turning to look at him. “Yeah, I guess. But only ‘cause you asked nicely.”

He kneels up and crawls over to her, nosing his way up her bare arm and giving her a smacking kiss on the cheek.

She laughs at him and pushes him back onto the blanket.

“That was crap, Hawkeye. But maybe if you’re nice you can try again later.”

He flops onto his back again and waits about fifteen seconds.

“Hey Katie.”

She laughs as she answers. “Yeah, Clint.”

“It’s later now.”

She lets a huge put-upon sigh as she leans over him, but her whole face shines happiness. “Yeah, alright.”

He reaches up to tuck her hair behind her ear and lets his hand rest on the back of her neck, pulling her down for a better angle. They kiss for a long minute, slow and lazy and perfect. He angles his head a little bit, starts to deepen the kiss, when there’s a burble and a solid thump against his leg.

He and Kate look down to find that JB has managed to roll himself onto his back and is looking, frankly, a little startled about it.

Clint grins and scoops him up, letting the baby settle on his chest as he lies back down. Kate manhandles his arm away from his side so she’s got a place to curl up, and rests her head on his shoulder so she can make faces at JB.

Lucky makes an exasperated “whoof” and trots over to curl up on Clint’s other side.

Apparently people were right about the whole using your words thing. Well, Clint can admit when he’s wrong.

He huffs a laugh, quietly, curls his arms around his family, and lets the sunlight wash over him.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on tumblr at ehonauta!


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